


After Titan

by SarahKnight



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity War, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, kidnap, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 15:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14475990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahKnight/pseuds/SarahKnight
Summary: Tony Stark is Nebula's best chance of getting her revenge on Thanos. So, does she befriend him? Of course not, this is Nebula we're talking about. While he's grieving and perhaps dying after the battle on Titan, she kidnaps him. Will Steve and the others ever find him, and can any of them stop Thanos?





	1. Chapter 1

Nebula surveyed the battle site. All that was left of those who had fought against Thanos was one half-man half-machine who huddled amidst the rubble, eyes wet with human tears, broken physically and emotionally. She did not recognize him as one of Gamora’s group from their previous encounters, but he had fought with them against Thanos.

He was an ally. 

An ally. The thought infuriated her, but… 

Alone, she had failed against Thanos too many times. Even whole armies had not succeeded against him, and that was before he had even one infinity stone. The closest anybody had got was perhaps the Guardians and their more recent recruits, including this one remaining man, who had pooled their varied skills to almost remove Thanos’s gauntlet. Logic dictated that if she wanted her revenge, she would need to do the same and… pool. 

Her own skills were… Dammit, her own skills were insufficient. The last time she had tried it alone, she had ended up suspended in the air, ripped apart in agony and used as leverage to blackmail her sister into revealing the location of the soul stone. Used to actually increase Thanos’s power!

Rage built within Nebula. All she wanted was to exact revenge on her father Thanos, but it was denied to her again and again. 

Her entire life, he had been her torturer. Even when she thought he could take no more from her, the moment she had begun to feel something softer, a reconciliation, an affection, a warmth for someone, for her sister Gamora, he took that away from her too, and then he killed the others that Gamora cared for, her precious Guardians. Detestable as she found them, her revenge was now compounded – she would punish Thanos not just for her own sake, but for Gamora’s too; for her life, and for the lives of the friends she would have grieved.

Gamora’s decision to protect her had led to her death. Hot pain erupted within Nebula’s chest, but she cooled the lava into a cold, hard rock. The one thing, the one person… Gamora was gone now at the hands of Thanos. 

Nebula would exact revenge in the most likely way to succeed, by using others who shared her goal.

She would start with the only other survivor of the recent battle.

He was still silhouetted against the fiery glow of Titan, huddled amidst the rubble. She had seen him stabbed straight through the gut, speared against the ground by Thanos. For most species, that would mean a slow, painful death, but perhaps he would survive. Like her, he appeared to be part biological, part mechanical; during the battle, his armour had seemed to emerge from within him, regenerating once destroyed. 

She wondered whether he, like her, had been destroyed and rebuilt, piece by piece, and experienced a flicker of kinship that repelled her so strongly she almost turned to abandon him on Titan, before she remembered her plan; the necessity of pooling her resources with others. He seemed broken now, but she had seen him fight and knew that once recovered, he would make a powerful weapon. 

If he recovered.

She stepped closer, silent.

His armour was fully retracted now and he was just a white-skinned human in loose, black clothing. He was covered in dust, grime and red blood. His eyes were closed, his face lined, his mouth covered by his hands as if that would hold him together. He looked far more like the innocent bystander of disaster than a warrior; like the defeated civilians who cowered, paralysed, in the wake of Thanos’s many genocides, stunned and frozen by their sudden loss.

Once again, she felt the familiar tug to go it alone, to leave this human behind to his own destiny. But she could use this fighter’s skills, use his own desire to stop Thanos to aid her own, and the ideal time to recruit him was now. While he was weak, while he was distracted by grief, while he had not the will to fight her.

He did not even hear her coming. She knocked him out with one swift kick and carried him, limp in her arms, to the Guardians’ ship.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Tony became aware of was the physical pain. A sickening deep ache with a razor sharp edge, searing through his gut, pulling him out of a nightmare about everybody he loved or even knew disintegrating into ash. A thumping at the back of his head, that swishing dizziness, even with his eyes closed, that told him he’d taken a hit to the skull in a recent battle. 

Battle. That got his attention, another jump towards consciousness. He fought it, knowing that he didn’t want to remember, that he would rather know the horrors in his mind were a nightmare, but knowing too, that there were horrors he had to face within reality. Reluctantly, he pulled himself out of the depths of semi-consciousness and blasted his awareness out into the real world.

His body reconnecting with his mind was not a comfortable experience. Of all the physical pains, the gut was the worst. He’d been speared straight through by Thanos and pinned to the ground like a flyer on a noticeboard. Yanking out the blade would’ve been suicide, as it would’ve ripped his inner organs further and left a gaping hole for them to bleed out of, so he had lasered the ends off and cauterized the rest. The blade was fused to his organs now, everything held in place, but it was a first-aid measure where he really needed emergency surgery.  


He wasn’t even sure that it was safe to move, but that was the last thing he wanted to do right now anyway. 

The agony of his battle wounds was nothing compared to the pain in his soul. To see his new acquaintances disintegrate had been bad enough. They had not had the time to form friendships, but they were heroes and even if not, Tony felt every life lost as a tragedy that he had not managed to prevent. It was he who had insisted they take the fight to Thanos. 

Why hadn’t he found a way to turn back, to assemble a team, before launching into battle? Why hadn’t he persuaded, or forced, Strange and therefore the time stone to stay away? Why hadn’t he fought harder, better, so that he could not be used as leverage, so that Strange could not sacrifice the stone to save Tony’s insignificant, unworthy life? 

One life, and all those lost. Half the galaxy lost, and Peter Parker, in his arms, just a kid, the best kid he’d ever known, sobbing and terrified. He should’ve been with May, or his friends, not in the depths of space with his billionaire benefactor, clutching and begging not to be taken, with Tony gaping speechless as he died.

Why had Tony been left alive? Why? Was it random? Or was it Thanos’s unwanted respect for him, lucky him, his celebrity extended to the most powerful megalomaniac in the universe? Was there something he could have done to make Thanos spare Peter too? To beg for the lives of his friends? For Pepper? Was Pepper alive? They were planning the wedding, starting to think about children, and now…? Now not just the world had ended, but the entire universe, and he had been in a position to prevent it, but hadn’t. He’d failed, and had to live with the worst imaginable consequences.

What about Rhodey, Happy, Bruce, Nat… Steve? Oh, Steve. 

But he couldn’t think about any of them. They were too far away, like a distant dream. They were alive, until he knew otherwise. Except for Vision. Vision was surely gone, the last vestiges of Jarvis, his creation, his teammate, his friend, destroyed to empower Thanos with the final infinity stone. The stone that meant he could destroy half the universe with a click of his fingers. 

Thanos had clicked, and it was done.

It was too much to comprehend. It cycloned around his mind, whipping up his sanity along with it, and he screamed.

The scream jolted him. He opened his eyes. The concussion was disorientating – he had felt like an abstract collection of agonies. He now comprehended that he was lying on his side, arms bound behind his back, restrained to a wall. The room was dominated by metal, and there was a vibration, a hum, similar to the one he’d experienced on his journey to Titan. 

He was on a spaceship. 

It barely registered with him to be afraid. In fact, he laughed, although it came out as more of a dry choke. 

Of course, he couldn’t even wake up stranded alone and possibly dying on an alien planet with half the galaxy dead because of his poor decisions. That wouldn’t be enough to deal with. He had to have been kidnapped too, flown further into space by an unknown foe with an unknown agenda, meaning that he wasn’t even free to try to right his wrongs. 

Space. He hated space.

And there it was. His mind whited out, consumed by the sensation of simultaneous claustrophobia and agoraphobia. He was trapped where he lay, against the inside of a tiny ship with unknown enemies, and around that, the uncomprehendible, devouring, vast nothing of space. There was nowhere to relax, nowhere to be safe, no reprieve. 

Even within himself, there was no comfort – his thoughts attacked him, his emotions crippled him, his body and suit were broken, and all around him, nothing but danger and destruction that he hadn’t the strength to fight against. He shouldn’t even move, lest the blade within shift and kill him, let alone fight; he was trapped from literally every angle.

But he was Tony, and so he thrashed against his bindings, desperate for at least that tiny piece of freedom, the freedom to move away from the wall, move his arms, was that too much to ask, was that too much to expect?

“Terran.”

The voice gave him something to focus on. He sagged. Opened his eyes again to see a blue-skinned being in front of him. The one who had fought with them against Thanos, who had brought news of that Gamora woman’s death.

“You got a screwdriver by any chance?” he asked. 

“What?” she frowned.

“I like to figure out how things work. Your face comes apart, right?”

“You will never find out,” she said, threateningly.

“Hey, ease up! I’m the one in chains, here. And, by the way, you are not gonna be happy with my TripAdvisor review. What is this shithole?”

“You do not know this ship?” she asked.

Tony’s brow furrowed.

“You are not a Guardian of the Galaxy,” she clarified. 

“What, those assholes who messed up the plan to get Thanos’s gauntlet? Or was that you?” He shrugged. “Team effort. No, we just met and now they’re dead. Oh, spoiler alert, you know they’re dead, right? You saw that part?”

Her hard expression remained hard.

“Seriously though,” he said. “I would kill for that screwdriver.”

She screamed and round-housed him in the head. His skull thumped against the wall behind him, making his eyes water. When his vision stopped spinning enough for his eyes to focus, she was gone. So, she was touchy about the robot thing. Lesson learnt. If he ever got back to Earth, he really ought to get around to reading How To Win Friends And Influence People.

Out in deep space, injured and at the mercy of a probable cybernetic psychopath, it felt like a pretty big 'if'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you reckon, shall I carry on? I just needed to get a little post-Infinity War angst off my chest, but if you like it, I'll write more. I'm picturing a hellish road trip to Thanos but your ideas for what could happen next are welcome. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Steve got straight to work. The battle was over, but the work wasn't. There were the injured, the orphaned and the destruction of infrastructure. He followed the direction of the Wakandans and kept busy.

At night, in the guest rooms of the palace, he couldn't run from his thoughts any more and he certainly couldn't sleep. 

He agonised over his refusal to let Vision sacrifice himself for the greater good. "We don't trade lives." He still believed it was the right decision - otherwise they were no better than Thanos. But if Wanda had destroyed the stone straight away... 

He saw the faces of the fallen, of the grieving survivors. Nobody had escaped unscathed. Everyone had either died or lost someone close. 

He saw Bucky's last moments. He pictured Wanda's and Sam's. The sorrow was a raw wound in the pit of his stomach. 

And yet, what kept him tossing and turning in the dark, was Tony. 

He thought of how Tony had panic attacks at the mere mention of the battle of New York, or space, or worm holes. And yet by Bruce's account had not hesitated to fly into a space ship to stop Thanos from getting the time stone, and, he was sure, to save a stranger, Dr. Strange. 

He knew Tony had failed of course, because Thanos had the time stone, but what had happened to him? 

If he was in the chosen half of the population, they might never know one way or another, he'd be dust. Even if he'd died before it happened, his body was who knows where out in the universe. 

What, though, if he was alive? Trapped, hurt or stranded on an alien ship or planet. 

Alone. 

The last time Steve had seen him, he'd been ramming the shield into his arc reactor. They'd never had the chance to reconcile, to talk. He'd reached out of course, with the phone, but the ball was in Tony's court and he wasn't playing. 

When the phone rang, Steve's heart had leapt. Half hope, half fear at what must be going badly enough that Tony would make the call. Bruce had explained Tony had the phone on his person, which gave Steve yet more hope that the silver lining of the crisis would be that it would bring him back to his friend. 

And now...

Now Tony was lost or dead a million miles from home and there was no way of finding out where. 

Or was there? If the situation were reversed, Tony would have a plan. Perhaps between Bruce and Shuri they could figure something out. 

As for Thanos, Steve exhausted every idea and all the conclusion he could come to was that they had truly lost. Thanos was gone, perhaps never to return to Earth. Trying to kill him would likely just be an intergalactic suicide mission. 

And yet, the infinity stones needed to be destroyed. Who knew when Thanos would tire of his "peaceful" universe and think up another insane plan? What about when some other tyrant fought Thanos for the stones, heedless of the collateral damage? They were too dangerous to be allowed to exist, in anyone's hands. 

But where to start? Thanos could be literally anywhere in the universe and they were technologically outmatched. 

He realised now why Tony and Bruce had tried to build Ultron. They'd been dead wrong, but they'd also been right - Earth was not safe and they were, as Tony had put it, hopelessly and hilariously outmatched. 

And yet. They had to try. He had to do something. A little of Steve's resolve began to creep back into his mind and with it a little peace. Exhausted, he drifted into a fitful sleep, adamant that in the morning he would start the plan to find Tony and to destroy the infinity stones for good. 

*  
Tony tossed and turned as much as his limited, restrained movement would allow. He knew what he needed to do  
and the plan cleared his head a little. Gave him something to focus on other than pain and grief.

He needed to escape, get the infinity stones from Thanos and figure out how to use their power to make things right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think? Shall I keep writing? Any requests? Shall I stick to canon or go Steve/Tony? I've written plenty before and have been reading Avengers fic for over five years, but this is the first Avengers fic I've written so I'd love to hear your opinions. Thanks!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your votes about whether to go canon or Stony. Canon won by a mile! There'll definitely be some Tony Steve stuff later on though - whether it'll be friendly or fisticuffs or both though you'll have to wait and see! For now, let's see what Tony and Nebula are up to...

Tony fidgeted where he lay. He had worked at his bonds until his fingers were numb, but the cuffs that held his wrists behind his back and attached him to the space ship wall were seamless and impregnable. His suit wasn't coming out to play and he was itching to tinker with the nanobot housing; to fix it. He felt naked without his tech - right now he wasn't really Iron Man, just a tired and injured human being way out of his depth.

His aches and pains were getting worse - without food, sleep or painkillers, they were hardly going to lighten. On top of his injuries he could now add the stiffness of lying on a cold hard floor all night in an uncomfortable position, on top of the usual day-after-a-workout/battle muscle aches.

He hadn't slept of course. It was the combination of pain, discomfort, hunger, adrenaline, grief, fear, and his frantically running round ideas about how he could get the infinity stones from Thanos, how he could escape, what the hell this blue madwoman wanted from him and where she was taking him, whether he was dying, who else was dead and the last words he'd said to Pepper, to Peter, to his friends, to Steve, and and and...

You'd think that if you'd been kidnapped in deep space by a cyborg it would be exciting. Terrifying, yes, but certainly not boring. But Tony was Tony and hour after hour without any stimulation other than his own panic was wearing on him.

He was terrified, yes, he was frantic.

But he was also so bored he actually wanted Nebula to come back from wherever she'd gone after punching him, just to have someone to talk to and to find out what would happen next. He yelled into the ship, not knowing if she heard.

"Hey! Terminator 2! Could you just free one of my hands? I've got an itch at the side of my nose. Or you could scratch it for me. Whichever's fine. Do you get itches? I can't tell if you're all machine or just part, the blue skin's throwing me off. Last week I would've said machine but I've seen a lot of weird shit since, you know, space. So, where you from? Don't worry, that's not a chat up line. I'm engaged. Otherwise, you know, I'd consider it. You're not so bad looking despite the high-tech face job. Speaking of Pepper, I'd really like to get back to Earth and see if she's alive. Any chance we could swing by the Milky Way? Any chance you've got a Milky Way? Don't know about you, but I'm starved. Doesn't have to be chocolate. I'm not feeling too picky right now. Although I warn you, if it sucks, I won't tip. Well, maybe just ten percent, but that's all sister."

"I am not your sister."

He looked across to see his captor standing in the entranceway.

"So," he said casually. "I got a list of demands."

Nebula cocked her head, as baffled as perpetually dead pan could be.

Tony: "Number one, untie me. Number two, take me to Earth. And number three, get me a coffee and a gluten free bagel. Please tell me there's coffee in space."

"You don't make demands," she said, her voice as huskily angry as ever.

"So, what's the deal with you?" he asked. "You ever smile? Laugh? Got any hobbies or interests? Come on, give me a little something here, this Vulcan act is freaking me out."

"I am only interested in getting revenge on Thanos."

Tony started in surprise. Of course, she had fought with them against Thanos on Titan, but since then things had taken a serious turn away from him seeing her as an ally.

"Well then we're on the same page, which begs the question, what the hell is THIS..." He thrashed at his bonds, anger building, "...all about?"

"You will help me defeat him." It wasn't a question.

"Er, no. It's gonna be more you helping ME."

She stared at him, eyes as dead as ever. "I will come for you when it's time."

She turned to leave. Tony thrashed at his bonds again.

"Hey!" he yelled. "You can't just, I don't know, throw me at him! Who made you the boss of this operation?"

She didn't turn back to look at him though, and strode out of the room to who knew where.

"And what about that coffee?" Tony yelled after her.

There was no reply. He groaned. If there was one thing that infuriated him it was when stubborn idiots wouldn't pay attention to logic.

Her words had given him a little hope at least. She was against Thanos, that was something. Although what she thought he could do tied up, injured and starving and without his tech was anyone's guess.

Whatever. He was Tony Stark and he could fix any problem that came his way. He would find a way to turn this situation to his advantage and use it to get the stones and turn them against Thanos. Yes he would.

Despite his determination however, a few more hours and he could barely string two thoughts together let alone come up with a master plan. He was tossing and turning in a delirious stupor when he jumped, realising suddenly that Nebula was looming over him, poised to attack.

"Woah, woah!" he protested, his voice gravelly and weak.

"You will not do my bidding?" she said.

"Indenture's not really my thing."

"Silence!" She backhanded him.

He was too out of it to really feel its force. 

"I despise my father," she said. "He taught me one useful lesson, though. How to make someone your loyal weapon."

"Huh?" 

"I'm sorry," she said. He could hear a hint of genuine regret within her robotic tone. "Only his own methods are powerful enough to stop him. When he's gone, I can be free of them."

"Thanos?" he said. "Yes, exactly! If we can get the stones... Wait, Thanos is your father? Huh. Kinda puts my Daddy issues into perspective."

A slug to the jaw silenced him. This time he felt it. The knock of bone against bone reverberating. The burn of split skin. The dull after ache that expanded through his skull.

She hit him again and again, pain upon pain. He couldn't catch his breath, or his thoughts to comprehend it.

His head was a swirl of confusion and agony and fear and anger.

Then it settled. He realised she had stopped. Panting, lungs tight and inadequate, he opened his eyes a crack.

She was crouched over him, threateningly close, but gaze distant.

"Did you know my sister Gamora?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Was she as much of a psycho as you? Cos I can totally see that asshole Star Lord going for that type of thing."

"Thanos killed her. You will become my weapon in the battle for vengeance."

"Look. I'm with you on the whole patricide thing, okay. But I'd be a lot more use to you NOT tied up, fixing my tech, getting less beat up instead of more, and drinking a damned cup of coffee."

She eyed him suspiciously.

"You will not trick me into releasing you to run free, Terran."

He frowned. So she didn't trust him. Well, that made sense. The feeling was mutual. All they knew about each other was their shared  hatred of Thanos. For all she knew he might kill her in her sleep en route to the fight.

Tony sighed. His first task was becoming clear. He needed to gain her trust and convince her to free him.

How messed up was it that he was going to have to befriend a robot who just kicked the shit out of him on a space ship? Well, never let it be said that there was anything he wouldn't do to save the universe.

"Look," he said. "I'm gonna hazard a guess that Thanos wasn't about to win Father of the Year. He was a dick, right? Messed up you and your sister? And how loyal did that make you to him?"

She seemed to consider this, but said nothing. Then she stood up and strode out of the room.

He sighed. How the hell was he going to get on her good side?

She returned a moment later. He suppressed a flinch and forced a smile that must've looked faker than his tan in Playgirl, April 2005.

"Hey, you know, I've always wondered what it'd be like to date a blue chick," he said. "You know, there are no blue women on Earth, but it's really kind of hot. So, are you metallic all over or..."

She lunged forward. This time he couldn't suppress the flinch, nor the little shout of fear and pain as she jolted his injured body. When she stepped backwards, though, he realised one hand was free.

He stretched it, happily. The blood rushed back into it with sharp pins and needles but it felt wonderful just to move it. "Hey, thanks!"

She tossed a packet at him. He moved to catch it, all reflex, but his arm was still too dead and it landed in front of him. It was a flat pack with alien symbols on it.

"Wha...?" he started.

"Rations," she said. "We're low, so don't get too used to it."

"Awww, you said 'we'," he cooed.

She stared at him blankly. Then stood and left without a word.

Tony grinned at her retreating back. Perhaps, he thought, this could work after all. One arm free and a little sustenance were two steps closer to stopping Thanos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think and whether you're up for reading more. :)


	5. Chapter 5

The worldwide memorial service was monstrous in its enormity, and yet the tragedy of losing billions of people, and unbeknownst to the general public, far more around the universe, was too infinite a grief to comprehend. Steve's misery honed in on his own private losses. 

When he'd woken up in the 21st century, he'd had nobody. Since, he'd gained shadows of Peggy and Bucky. Now they were gone, along with Sam, Wanda, Vision, T'Challa, Tony. He felt guilty for his selfish agony - he was lucky, wasn't he? He still had Natasha, and, he supposed, Thor and Bruce, although having not seen the latter two for a couple of years he didn't really know how things stood with them. It was one thing to find camaraderie in battle, another to be a true friend.

He saw Bucky reaching out, then disintegrating... How many times would he have to see his best friend die? Once more, he wished, once more, if it meant him coming back again. They hadn't even had a chance to reconnect, launched straight into battle. The last time they'd spent time together without there being a fight must have been before their first war.

Through the windows of the guest lounge in the palace, he could see thousands of lights as Wakanda grieved. He could have spared them that loss, had he let Vision sacrifice himself. And yet, he knew he would make the same decision again and again. 

Natasha stepped up to his side. Squeezed an arm, comfortingly. They shared a condoling half-smile. "Come on," she said softly, and tugged at his arm. He followed her, trusting her not to drag him into the public festivities. 

On the guest quarters' rooftop garden, were a circle of familiar faces, around a fire. Nat took her place next to Bruce, and the intimate look they shared told Steve that they had reconnected, or had at least started to. On her other side was Clint, gripping an arrow in one hand. Steve was relieved to see him alive, but it was muted - there was a lid to how much grief a person could feel, and being so far over it already, discovering one person more was alive didn't lessen it. Especially since the hollow rage in Clint's eyes told Steve all he needed to know about Laura and the kids. Thor was there too, head in hands, and at his side, the talking animal that Steve still hadn't managed to wrap his head around. 

The original Avengers, minus Iron Man but plus a real-life cartoon talking animal. Steve laughed. But nobody even reacted, too numb in their own loss to call him on the inappropriateness. Steve sat, between Bruce and the furry alien.

"Odin," said Thor. "Frigga, Heimdall, Fandral, Hogun... most of Asgard." Not half, but MOST. There was a story there, but everyone was too weary with stories of death and destruction to tell even their own, let alone listen to others. "And... Loki," finished Thor. "A hero at the end."

"Groot," whispered Rocket, with the raw agony of having lost a child. 

Steve said: "Peggy, Sam, Wanda, Vision, T'Challa," he said. "Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes." He felt as if his load should lighten as he offered each of his dead friends to the flames, but that was too romantic a notion. It felt right to honour them, but it didn't bring them back.

Clint was next, but he just stared into the flames, his grip on the arrow tightening.

"Laura, Cooper, Lila, Nathanial," said Nat.

Bruce stared into the fire for so long that Steve didn't think he was going to say anything at all, but eventually, he spoke. "Tony," he said. For a moment, Steve was filled with agony - Tony wasn't dead, he might not be dead, he couldn't be! Bruce continued: "I think we should look for Tony..."

"You think we should risk our lives for that asshole?" bit Clint.

"... and Dr. Strange," finished Bruce.

"I'm worried about Tony too," said Steve, "but he could be anywhere in the universe, and we need to focus on destroying the stones and stopping Thanos. Tony would want that to be our priority."

"It's not just to save them," said Bruce. "They went after Thanos, and even if they didn't learn anything, they're our best chance of stopping him."

"I agree," said Nat. "But we have no idea where to start or whether they're even alive."

"If finding them is even possible," said Steve, "it could take years. Thanos could have killed billions more by then."

"Wow, I thought maybe it was just Quill, but Terrans really are complete morons," came a voice that shut everybody up. 

"You got something to say, Rabbit?" said Steve.

"YOU don't call me Rabbit," he ordered. "It's Rocket to you... Captain Rocket."

"Okay, Captain," said Steve, "What's your big plan?"

"Your friends..."

Clint snorted.

"This Tony feller, you say he went after Thanos? So we just gotta go to the last place Thanos was before Earth."

The group stared at him in silence. 

"Do I have to do all the thinking around here?" sneered Rocket.

"Of course!" said Thor. He turned to the others. "During my quest for the axe, the rabbit and I received a call from his companions, the Guardians of the Galaxy..."

Rocket finished: "They were on their way to stop Thanos. On Titan."

"Let's say we entertain this crazy plan for a second," said Clint. "It's another planet, right? How the hell would we get there?"

"Thor here can zap us straight there with his magic rainbow," said Rocket.

Clint let this roll over him. "And what do we do if we land on Thanos's doorstep? Just ask him nicely to hand over Tony, Strange and the infinity stones?" 

"Actually, I've been working on something with Queen Shuri and Dr. Strange's colleague, Wong," said Bruce. "With what Shuri and I know about the Tesseract, and what Wong knows about the time stone, plus a load of data Friday sent me, we think that we can figure out how to create a device that will emit a frequency that can destroy the stones."

That was the best news any of them had heard in a while. 

"How long?" asked Steve, his dark tone masking his spark of hope.

"It's impossible to say - it could be a few days, it could be a year, and of course we can only test it in simulations, so there's no guarantee..."

"No way," said Rocket. "My crew could be dying on Titan right now." 

Thor stood. "Rabbit is right. He and I will go to Titan on a rescue mission and come back with Tony, the Guardians, and Dr. Weird."

"I'll go with you," said Nat. Bruce shot her a worried look. She turned to him. "I'm useless here until you and Shuri create the device."

"Fine, I'm in," said Clint, frowning.

Steve weighed up his options. Titan could be a suicide mission, they could be walking straight into Thanos's backyard. They would have a better chance if they waited until the device was ready, then came up with a plan of how to use it on Thanos. But he knew that he would not stop the others from going. He wasn't their captain any more; he couldn't give them orders. Thor was fuelled by the rage of having nothing left to lose, Rocket by the need to help his friends. Nat had sounded certain - she cared about Tony, and she needed to feel she was doing something. Clint, of course, hated Tony, but wanted to be by Nat's side.

Steve - what did he think? He didn't want to lose Tony, especially not with how they'd left things in Siberia. It would be an open wound that would never heal. And the others, he would lose them too, if they died in their foolhardy mission. They would have a better chance if they stayed together, as a team.

"I'm in," said Steve. "First thing tomorrow morning, we'll..."

But Thor had already raised his axe. Bruce reached out for Nat, but as she turned to say goodbye, she and the others were whisked away from him, to Titan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! :)


	6. Chapter 6

Tony hadn't been asleep. He'd been swirling in a semi conscious muddle of torment, vaguely aware that something was happening to his body in the black distance. 

A bright light shining right into his face brought him groggily into awareness. 

A moment later and the realisation that he was strapped to a steel gurney in some kind of space lab, was like a bucket of ice to the face. 

His yes snapped open. "What the..."

Nebula was nearby, rummaging through a box of vials and what looked like gadgets of some kind.

"I cannot locate the anaesthetic," she said. "Do you speak Vanadu?"

She held a vial up to his face. Inside, a fiery, fizzing liquid. On the glass, a label on which was printed a series of symbols whose meaning was impenetrable. 

What was much clearer, was who Nebula wanted to use the possible anaesthetic on. 

"Are you a doctor?" asked Tony. 

She shook her head. 

"Nurse?"

Another shake. 

"Scientist?"

"I am a warrior," she said and returned to her rummaging. 

"A warrior?" Tony's voice was tinged with the high pitch of hysteria. "Then let's fight, cos you are NOT going to..."

She pulled a scalpel out of the box. 

Tony's panic upped another notch. "And definitely none of that!"

He struggled against the bindings at his wrists and ankles, but they were fused to the table with the strength of steel. "Come on," he said, "I thought we were starting to bond."

"You are dying of wound infection," said Nebula. "The blade shard must be removed."

"Yes," agreed Tony. "By A SURGEON! Or at least somebody with access to soap. For all we know, Star Lord might've been using that thing to shave his ass hole. Besides, you pull it out I'll probably die from the blood loss. Remember the plan to keep me alive so we can defeat Thanos together, use the stones to undo what he's done."

"Do not worry, I have plenty of experience with cybernetic... enhancement," she said. She cocked her head at a nearby robotic armour plate that under any other circumstances Tony would love to get a closer look at. As for having the blue psycho try to stitch it to him while he bled to death, not so much. 

"Look," he said, running his eye over her with an engineer's fascination, "I'm all for human-tech hybridisation, but something tells me you were on the receiving end not the doing end, so let's just..."

"Do not worry, Terran. The instructions are simple."

She waved at a screen with a paused video on it. An orange-skinned woman in a white lab coat was cutting into a human's face with a scalpel and talking into the camera. 

"Oh no," said Tony. "No, absolutely not. You are not YouTubing surgery."

"I must first stop you from biting off your own tongue," she said. 

She slapped a metallic crescent around Tony's mouth. It moulded to fit the shape of not just his jaw and lips, but the inside of his mouth too, holding his teeth and tongue apart. Tony shouted his protests but they were muffled and incomprehensible. 

It was without a doubt the most powerless he had ever felt over his own body and fate. It was the third time he'd been kidnapped. Being zip tied to an upturned bed and taunted had not been a picnic, and the cave had been the darkest time of his life. But he'd never been so physically restrained before, unable to move his arms, legs, torso, and now not even his mouth. The only thing that came close was when Obie stole the arc reactor and left him paralysed, and at least then he'd known it would wear off, and was able to move a little to save himself when it did. This, this was hell. Not even able to argue or reason with his alien captor, let alone fight her, as she prepared to cut into him. 

Tears threatened to well in his eyes and he blinked them back. Panted, terrified, as Nebula listened to the next set of instructions on the video. It was in an alien language and he had no idea what it was telling her to do to him. No real idea what was really coming. Nebula's body, now he knew she had been sentient, had clearly been cut away and replaced with mechanical parts. Would she do the same to him? 

Would she make him more Iron than Man? How much could she take away and him still be him? Could she make his body go on moving, talking, an empty vessel to do her bidding? 

She paused her video and loomed over him holding the vial of who knows what. "You need to be unconscious for the procedure," she said. "So that you stay still."

Tony wasn't sure what would be worse. To be awake for it, or to be so completely at her mercy that he wouldn't even know what was being done to him. The choice was denied to him though of course. 

She tossed aside the mystery vial and punched him in the head until everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment. :)


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